12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal)

by Leslie Charteris

  Sam Outrell's beam of delight gave way to a troubled gravity. He looked furtively about him.

  "There was two detectives here the other day, sir," he said.

  The Saint frowned at him thoughtfully for a moment. Although Sam Outrell was nominally employed by the management of the building, he was on Simon Templar's private payroll as well; but no stipend could have bought the look of almost doglike devotion with which he waited anxiously for the Saint's reaction. Simon looked up at him again and smiled.

  "I expect they were the birds I hired to try and find a collar stud that went down the waste pipe," he said and went whistling on his way to the lift.

  He let himself into his apartment noiselessly. There were sounds of someone moving about ir the living room, and he only stopped to throw his hat and coat onto a chair before he went through and opened the second door.

  "Hullo, Pat," he said softly. "I thought you'd be here."

  Across the room, a tall slender girl with fair golden hair gazed at him with eyes as blue as his own. There was the grace of a pagan goddess in the way she stood, caught in surprise as she was by the sound of his voice, and the reward of all journeys in the quiver of her red lips.

  "So you have come back," she said.

  "After many adventures," said the Saint and took her into his arms.

  She turned away presently, keeping his arm round her, and showed him the table.

  "I got in a bottle of your favourite sherry," she said rather breathlessly, "in case you came."

  "In case?" said the Saint.

  "Well, after you wired me not to meet you at Southampton------"

  He laughed, a quiet lilt of laughter that had rung in her memory for many weeks.

  "Darling, that was because I was expecting an-other deputation of welcome at the same time, and it might have spoilt the fun for both of us. The deputation was there, too--but you shall hear about that presently."

  He filled the two glasses which stood beside the bottle and carried one of them over to an arm-chair. Over the rim of his glass he regarded her, freshening the portrait which he had carried with him ever since he went away. So much had happened to him, so many things had touched him and passed on into the illimitable emptiness of time, but not one line of her had changed. She was the same as she had been on the day when he first met her, the same as she had been through all the lawless adventures that they had shared since she threw in her lot irrevocably with his. She looked at him in the same way.

  "You're older," she said quietly.

  He smiled.

  "I haven't been on a picnic."

  "And there's something about you that tells me you aren't on a picnic even now."

  He sipped the golden nectar from his glass and delved for a cigarette. When she said that he was older she could not have pointed to a grey hair or a new line on his face to prove her statement. And at that moment she felt that the clock might well have been put back five years. The fine sunburnt devil-may-care face, the face of a born outlaw, was in some subtle way more keenly etched than ever by the indefinable inward light that came to it when trouble loomed up in his buccaneering path. She knew him so well that the lazy quirk of the unscrupulous freebooter's mouth told a story of its own, and even the whimsical smile that lurked on in his eyes could not deceive her.

  "It isn't my fault if you develop these psychic powers, old sweetheart," he said.

  "It's your fault if you can't even stay out of trouble for a week now and again," she said and sat on the arm of his chair.

  He shook his head and took one of her hands.

  "I tried to, Pat, but it just wasn't meant to happen. A wicked ogre with a black guardee moustache hopped through a window and said 'Boo!' and my halo blew off. If I wanted to, I could blame it all on you."

  "How?"

  "For just managing to catch me in Boston before I sailed, with that parcel you forwarded!"

  Patricia Holm puckered her sweet brow.

  "Parcel? . . . Oh, I think I remember it. A thing about the size of a book--it came from Monte Carlo, didn't it?"

  "It came from Monte Carlo," said the Saint carefully, "and it was certainly about the size of a book. In fact, it was a book. It was the most amazing book I've ever read--maybe the most amazing book that was ever written. There it is!"

  He pointed to the volume which he had put down on the table, and she stared at it and then back at him in utter perplexity.

  "Her Wedding Secret?" she said. "Have you gone mad or have I?"

  "Neither of us," said the Saint. "But you wouldn't believe how many other people are mad about it."

  She looked at him in bewildered exasperation. He was standing up again, a debonair wide-shouldered figure against the sunlight that streamed in through the big windows and lengthened the evening shadows of the trees in the Green Park. She felt the spell of his daredevil delight as irresistible as it had always been, the absurd glamour which could even take half the sting from his moments of infuriating mysteriousness. He smiled, and his hands went to her shoulders.

  "Listen, Pat," he said. "That book is a present from an old friend, and he knew what he was doing when he sent it to me. When I show it to you, you'll see that it's the most devilishly clever revenge that ever came out of a human brain. But before we go any further, I want you to know that there's more power in that book for the man who's got it than anyone else in England has today, and for that very reason------"

  The sharp trill of the telephone bell cut him off. He looked at the instrument for a moment and then lifted the receiver.

  "Hullo," he said.

  "This is Outrell, sir," said an agitated voice. "Those two detectives I told you about--they've just bin here again. They're on their way up to you now, sir."

  Simon gazed dreamily at the ceiling for a second or two, and his fingertips played a gently syncopated tattoo on the side table.

  "Okay, Sam," he said. "I'll give them your love."

  He replaced the instrument and stood with his hand on it, looking at Patricia. His level blue eyes were mocking and enigmatic, but this time at least she knew enough of his system to read beyonc them.

  "Hadn't you better hide the book?" she said.

  "It is hidden," he answered, touching the gaudy wrapper. "And we may as well have a look at these sleuths."

  The ringing of another bell put a short stop to further discussion, and with a last smile at her he went out to open the door. The trouble was coming thick and fast, and there were tiny chisellings at the corners of his mouth to offset the quiet amusement in his eyes. But he only stopped long enough in the little hall to transfer the automatic from his hip pocket to a pocket in his raincoat, and then he opened the door wide with a face of seraphic tranquillity.

  Two men in dark suits stood on the mat outside. Both of them wore bowler hats; neither of them carried sticks or gloves.

  "Mr. Simon Templar?" queried one of them, in a voice of astounding refinement.

  Simon nodded, and they moved determinedly through the door with a concerted solidity which would certainly have obstructed any attempt he might have made to slam it in their faces.

  "I am Inspector Nassen," said the genteel spokesman, "and I have a warrant to search your flat."

  "Bless my soul!" ejaculated the Saint, with his juiciest lisp. "So you're one of our new public-school policemen. How perfectly sweet!"

  The other's lips tightened.

  "We'll start with searching you," he said shortly.

  His hands ran over the Saint's pockets in a few efficient movements which were sufficient to assure him that Simon had no lethal weapon on his person. The Saint restrained a natural impulse to smack him on the nose and smiled instead.

  "This is a great game, Snowdrop, isn't it?" he said. "Personally I'm broad-minded, but if you did these things to a lady she might misunderstand you."

  Nassen's pale face flushed wrathfully, and an unholy gleam came into the Saint's eye. Of all the detectives who ought never to have called upon him, one who
was so easily baited was booked for a rough passage before he ever set out.

  "We'll go over the flat now," he said.

  Simon led them into the living room and calmly set about refilling his sherry glass.

  "Pat," he explained casually, "these are two little fairies who just popped through the keyhole. They seem to want to search the place and see if it's all cleany-weeny. Shall we let them get on with it?"

  "I suppose so," said Patricia tolerantly. "Did they wipe their tootsy-wootsies before they came in?"

  "I'm afraid not," said the Saint. "You see, they | aren't very well-bred little fairies. But when you have a beautiful Oxford accent you aren't supposed to need manners as well. You should just hear Snowdrop talking. Sounds as if all his teeth were loose. . . ."

  He went on in the same vein throughout the search, with an inexhaustible resource of wicked glee, and it was two very red and spluttering men who faced him after they had ransacked every room under the running commentary with which he enlivened their tour.

  "Get your hat," Nassen said. "You're comin| along with us."

  Simon put down his glass--they were back in the living room then.

  "On what charge, Snowdrop?" he inquired.

  "The charge is being in possession of informa-tion contrary to the Official Secrets Act."

  "It sounds a mouthful," Simon admitted. "Shall I pack my powder puff as well, or will you be able to lend me one?"

  "Get your hat!" Nassen choked out in a shaking voice.

  The Saint put a cigarette between his lips and stroked a thumb over the cog of his lighter. He looked at Patricia through the first feather of smoke, returning the lighter to his pocket, and the carless twinkle in his eyes might or might not have been an integral part of the smile that flitted across his brown face. "It looks as if we shall have to finish our talk

  later, old darling," he murmured. "Snowdrop is in a hurry. Save some sherry for me, will you?--I shan't be long."

  Almost incredulously, but with a sudden leap of uncomprehending fear, she watched him saunter serenely from the room, and through the open door he saw him pick up his raincoat from the hall chair and pause to adjust his soft hat to its correct piratical angle before he went out. Long after he had gone, she was still trying to make herself believe that she had seen Simon Templar, the man who had tantalized all the forces of law and order in the world for more years than any of them liked to be reminded of, arrested as easily as that.

  III

  Riding in a taxi between the two detectives, the Saint looked at his watch and saw that he had been in England less than four hours, and he had to admit that the pace was fairly rapid even by his exacting standards. One whiskered hold-up mer-chant, an unidentified shadower in a taxi, and two public-school detectives worked out at a reasonably hectic average for the time involved; but Simon knew that that was only a preliminary sample of the kind of attention he could expect while he re-mained the holder of Her Wedding Secret.

  On either side of him, Nassen and the other sleuth licked their sores in silence. Whether they were completely satisfied with the course of events so far is not known, nor does the chronicler feel that posterity will greatly care. Simon thought kindly of other possible ways of adding to their martyrdom; but before he had made his final choice of the various forms of torment at his disposal the taxi was stopped by a traffic light at the corner of St. James's Street, and the Saint looked through the window from a range of less than two yards full into the chubby red face and sleepy eye' of the man without whom none of his adventures were really complete.

  Before either of the other two could stop him he had slung himself forward and loosed a de-lighted yell through the open window.

  "Claud Eustace, by the bed socks of Dr. Bar-nardo!" cried the Saint joyfully.

  The man's drowsy optics revolved towards the source of the sound, and, having located it, wid-ened with indescribable eloquence. For a second or two he actually stopped chewing on his gum His jaws seized up, and his portly bowler-hatted figure halted statuesquely.

  There were cogent and fundamental reasons for the tableau--reasons which were carved in imperishable letters across the sluggish coagulation of emotions which Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal himself would have been much too diffident to call his soul. They were reasons which went 'way back through the detective's life to those almost unimaginably distant blissful days before anyone in England had ever heard of the Saint-- the days when a policeman's lot had been a reasonably happy one, moving through well-ordered grooves to a stolid and methodical percentage of success, and there had been no such incalculable filibuster sweeping at intervals into the peaceful scene to tie all averages in knots and ride such rings round the wrath and vengeance of Scotland Yard as had never been ridden before. They were reasons which could have been counted one by one on Mr. Teal's grey hairs; and all of them surged out of his memory in a solid phalanx at such moments as that, when the Saint returned to England after an all-too-brief absence, and Mr. Teal saw him in London again and knew that the tale was no aearer its end than it had ever been.

  All these things came back to burden Mr. Teal's overloaded heart in that moment's motionless stare; and then with a sigh he stepped to the window of the taxicab and faced his future stoically.

  "Hullo," he said.

  The Saint's eyebrows went up in a rising slant of mockery.

  "Claud!" he protested. "Is that kind? I ask you, is that a brotherly welcome? Anyone might think you weren't pleased to see me."

  "I'm not," said Mr. Teal dourly. "But I shall have to see you."

  The Saint smiled.

  "Hop in," he invited hospitably. "We're going your way."

  Teal shook his head--that is the simplest way of describing the movement, but it was such a perfunctory gesture that it simply looked as if he had thought of making it and had subsequently decided that he was too tired.

  "Thanks," he said. "I've got another job to do just now. And you seem to be in good company." His baby-blue eyes, restored to their habitual affectation of sleepiness, moved over the two embarrassed men who flanked the Saint. "You know who you're with, boys," he told them. "Watch him."

  "Pardon me," said the Saint hastily. "I forgot to do the honours. This specimen on my left is Snowdrop, the Rose of Peckham------"

  "All right," said Teal grimly. "I know them. And I'll bet they're going to wish they'd never known you--if they haven't begun wishing it already." The traffic light was at green again, and the hooting of impatient drivers held up behind made the detective step back from the window. "I'll see you later," he said and waved the taxi on.

  The Saint grinned and settled back again, as the cab turned south towards the Park. That chance encounter had set the triumphal capstone on his homecoming: it was the last familiar chord of the old opening chorus, his guarantee that the old days had finally come back in all their glory. The one jarring note was in the sinister implications of Teal's parting speech. Ever frank and open, the Saint sought to compare opinions on the subject.

  "It sounds," he murmured, "almost as if Claud Eustace had something on his mind. Didn't it sound that way to you, Snowdrop?"

  Nassen was wiping his forehead with a large white handkerchief; and he seemed deaf to the advance. His genteel sensitive soul had been bruised, and he had lost the spirit of such candid camaraderie. He put his handkerchief away and slipped an automatic from his pocket. Simon felt the muzzle probe into his ribs, and glanced down at it with one satirical eyebrow raised.

  "You know, you could kill someone with that," he said reprovingly.

  "I wish it could be you," said the Rose of Peck-ham in a tone of passionate earnestness, and relapsed into morbid silence.

  Simon chuckled and lighted another cigarette. The gun in his own raincoat pocket rested comfortingly across his thigh, but he saw no need to advertise his own armoury. He watched their route with patient interest--they emerged at Parliament Square, but instead of turning down to the Embankment they circled the square and went ba
ck up Victoria Street.

  "I suppose you know this isn't the way to Scotland Yard, Snowdrop?" he remarked helpfully. "This is the way you're going first," Nassen told him.

  The Saint shrugged. They turned quickly off Victoria Street, and pulled up shortly afterwards outside a house in one of those almost stupefyingly sombre and respectable squares in the district known to its residents as Belgravia but to the vulgar public, less pretentiously, as Pimlico. Nas-sen's colleague got out and went up the steps to ring the bell, and the Saint followed under the unnecessarily aggressive propulsion of Nassen's gun.

  The door was opened by one of the most mag-nificently majestic butlers that the Saint had ever seen. He seemed to be expecting them, for he stood aside immediately, and the Saint was led quickly through the hall into a spacious library on the ground floor.

  "I will inform his lordship of your arrival," said the butler and left them there.

  Simon Templar, who had been taking in his sur-roundings with untroubled interest, turned round as the door closed.

  "You ought to have told me we were going to visit a Lord, Snowdrop," he said reproachfully.

  "I'd have put on my Old Etonian suspenders and washed my neck. I know you washed your neck today, because I can see the line where you left off."

  Nassen tugged at his lower lip and simmered audibly, but his woes had passed beyond the remedy of repartee. And he was still smouldering pinkly when Lord Iveldown came in.

  Lord Iveldown's name will not go down to history in the company of Gladstone, Disraeli, or the Earl of Chatham. Probably it will not go down to history at all. He was a minor statesman whose work had never been done in the public eye, which was at least a negative blessing for a public eye which has far too much to put up with already. In plain language, which tradition forbids any statesman to use, he was one of those permanent government officials who do actually run the country while the more publicized politicians are talking about it. He was a big man inclined to paunchi-ness, with thin grey hair and pince-nez and the aura of stupendous pomposity by which the permanent government official may instantly be recognized anywhere; and the Saint, whose portrait gallery of excrescences left very little ground uncovered, recognized him at once.